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56 reviews for:
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
Stephen Kinzer
4.06 AVERAGE
56 reviews for:
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
Stephen Kinzer
4.06 AVERAGE
Fantastic book for understanding the early FBI and American post-war diplomacy. God, these two dudes SUCKED - unreal we have a major airport named after one of them.
Magisterial. Damning. And: SO GOOD. Should be required reading for all Americans.
The book opens and ends with a simple idea: the Dulles brothers have been largely forgotten, but they shouldn't be - because they're a cautionary tale of the dark side of American exceptionalism.
The author centralizes all of Cold War history around these two bros and I, for one, was amazed: the scope is convincingly all-encompassing. You end up realizing that the world might have been a very, very different place - many countries' histories would have been very different - if Allen Dulles had never run the CIA and if his older brother, John Foster Dulles (of the airport), had never run the State Department. (At the same time btw.)
The structure of the book is an oddly-inspired sports movie/video game of (1) briefly introducing the bros and their uniquely privileged upbringing (as children, they mixed with diplomats and heads of state), and then (2) introducing the "six monsters" that the brothers focused their raging anti-Communist fire against: Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Sukarno in Indonesia, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and finally Fidel Castro in Cuba.
Each battle with each "monster" escalates the stakes, demonstrating the anti-democratic, interventionist and covert lengths these brothers would go to in order to protect "Christian free enterprise"/"the West". These brothers lived and breathed the Red Scare; yet their moralizing anti-Communism was also idiosyncratic, contradictory and blatantly self-serving. (The coup in Guatemala was particularly damning in this regard.)
Basically, this ties together all those old leftist anti-American criticisms that I used to mostly disregard; all that Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein stuff. This illuminates all those stories of dodgy CIA stuff that I had also half-heard (for example, of the CIA's meddling in Italy's elections, ensuring permanent victories for the Christian Democratic Party, and of the CIA's likely hand in Italy's domestic terrorism during the 1970s). There's no ambiguity here: the author notes how Eisenhower directed the Dulles brothers to assassinate the (democratically elected) Patrice Lumumba and Fidel Castro. Lumumba's story, in particular, is absolutely infuriating.
The author notes how the brothers were completely hamstrung by their inability to understand the post-colonial nationalist movements, and instead portrayed the entire world along a Big Powers US vs. USSR dichotomy: as Bush would say, you're either with us or against us. (Nehru pops up here as a miracle of a politician in his ability to keep India non-aligned.)
Other stuff:
- Clearly, this should be read as a companion to Jean Edward Smith's Bush, since much of that corporate-cum-Christianity stuff with moralizing-blinders-on is very Bush - and very elite Republican/those who would wish us a Judeo-Christian free market corporo-theocracy.
- Oh, btw, John Foster Dulles was strangely sympathetic to the Nazis?! Until even as late as 1939!?! His law firm financed lots of Nazi spending, and he himself was angry at BRITAIN for declaring war after the invasion of Poland. WHAT THE FU
- Julia Child was in the OSS (the CIA's predecessor). JULIA CHILD!?
- Kim Philby thought Allen was dumb/intellectually lazy. Reminder that Kim Philby's story is bananas (he was one of the most successful Cold War double agents).
- Similar to the Kim Philby circles, the Dulles bros traveled in tight, "good ol boy" networks of "restless sons of privilege": dudes recommended by their Harvard profs to go meddle in overseas affairs, romantic like T.E. Lawrence and similarly chaotic.
- Yes, MKULTRA was a real thing and the CIA tested LSD on people without them realizing it JUST WHAT
The book opens and ends with a simple idea: the Dulles brothers have been largely forgotten, but they shouldn't be - because they're a cautionary tale of the dark side of American exceptionalism.
The author centralizes all of Cold War history around these two bros and I, for one, was amazed: the scope is convincingly all-encompassing. You end up realizing that the world might have been a very, very different place - many countries' histories would have been very different - if Allen Dulles had never run the CIA and if his older brother, John Foster Dulles (of the airport), had never run the State Department. (At the same time btw.)
The structure of the book is an oddly-inspired sports movie/video game of (1) briefly introducing the bros and their uniquely privileged upbringing (as children, they mixed with diplomats and heads of state), and then (2) introducing the "six monsters" that the brothers focused their raging anti-Communist fire against: Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Sukarno in Indonesia, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and finally Fidel Castro in Cuba.
Each battle with each "monster" escalates the stakes, demonstrating the anti-democratic, interventionist and covert lengths these brothers would go to in order to protect "Christian free enterprise"/"the West". These brothers lived and breathed the Red Scare; yet their moralizing anti-Communism was also idiosyncratic, contradictory and blatantly self-serving. (The coup in Guatemala was particularly damning in this regard.)
Basically, this ties together all those old leftist anti-American criticisms that I used to mostly disregard; all that Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein stuff. This illuminates all those stories of dodgy CIA stuff that I had also half-heard (for example, of the CIA's meddling in Italy's elections, ensuring permanent victories for the Christian Democratic Party, and of the CIA's likely hand in Italy's domestic terrorism during the 1970s). There's no ambiguity here: the author notes how Eisenhower directed the Dulles brothers to assassinate the (democratically elected) Patrice Lumumba and Fidel Castro. Lumumba's story, in particular, is absolutely infuriating.
The author notes how the brothers were completely hamstrung by their inability to understand the post-colonial nationalist movements, and instead portrayed the entire world along a Big Powers US vs. USSR dichotomy: as Bush would say, you're either with us or against us. (Nehru pops up here as a miracle of a politician in his ability to keep India non-aligned.)
Other stuff:
- Clearly, this should be read as a companion to Jean Edward Smith's Bush, since much of that corporate-cum-Christianity stuff with moralizing-blinders-on is very Bush - and very elite Republican/those who would wish us a Judeo-Christian free market corporo-theocracy.
- Oh, btw, John Foster Dulles was strangely sympathetic to the Nazis?! Until even as late as 1939!?! His law firm financed lots of Nazi spending, and he himself was angry at BRITAIN for declaring war after the invasion of Poland. WHAT THE FU
- Julia Child was in the OSS (the CIA's predecessor). JULIA CHILD!?
- Kim Philby thought Allen was dumb/intellectually lazy. Reminder that Kim Philby's story is bananas (he was one of the most successful Cold War double agents).
- Similar to the Kim Philby circles, the Dulles bros traveled in tight, "good ol boy" networks of "restless sons of privilege": dudes recommended by their Harvard profs to go meddle in overseas affairs, romantic like T.E. Lawrence and similarly chaotic.
- Yes, MKULTRA was a real thing and the CIA tested LSD on people without them realizing it JUST WHAT
Really should be 4.5 stars.
A really compelling and readable account of the lives and careers of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, brothers who were Secretary of State and Director of the CIA in the 1950s. It was when the US was engaged in a lot of abuses, overthrowing governments, encouraging disorder and violence to advance some supposed cold war objective, et cetera. Despite how influential and famous they were at the time, I had no idea who they were before I read the book. All I knew as the name on the airport near Washington DC.
My only issue with the book is the last chapter, when Kinzer briefly delves into the psychology of the brothers and talks about their wider meaning in the context of American culture. That chapter is only 18 pages long. It raises so many questions the way it tries to address them feels rushed and inadequate. But the history before that is really excellent. Or at least I learned a lot from it.
A really compelling and readable account of the lives and careers of John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, brothers who were Secretary of State and Director of the CIA in the 1950s. It was when the US was engaged in a lot of abuses, overthrowing governments, encouraging disorder and violence to advance some supposed cold war objective, et cetera. Despite how influential and famous they were at the time, I had no idea who they were before I read the book. All I knew as the name on the airport near Washington DC.
My only issue with the book is the last chapter, when Kinzer briefly delves into the psychology of the brothers and talks about their wider meaning in the context of American culture. That chapter is only 18 pages long. It raises so many questions the way it tries to address them feels rushed and inadequate. But the history before that is really excellent. Or at least I learned a lot from it.
dark
informative
reflective
dark
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." - John Quincy Adams
Foster was a man who viewed people as ants and countries as ant hills. He conceptualized how he wanted the hill to look. His brother, Allen, the swashbuckling brother, actually messed around with the ant hills.
The Dulles Brothers' adventures reads like a Forrest Gump of mismanaging US foreign policy. The brothers served as courtiers to US business interests through Sullivan and Cromwell and, in a choice that benefited those interests, made the paranoid decision to descend into the security dilemma spiral of the Cold War. They had no conception of "blowback" and because of that, their tale should be a blueprint for anyone trying to make sense of what status-quo news analysts and IR mandarins report on today.
The Brothers' Manichean view of the world would be hilarious if it was not so permanently damaging to American credibility. Their egregious conflicts of interest, mixing business with policy, was an unquestioned and inherited predilection that they got from their Grandpa, who helped overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy and from Wilson, the president who validated their instincts. These were men who sought monsters everywhere. Because of that, as Kinzer points out, they are profoundly American.
La Gloriosa Victoria
Foster was a man who viewed people as ants and countries as ant hills. He conceptualized how he wanted the hill to look. His brother, Allen, the swashbuckling brother, actually messed around with the ant hills.
The Dulles Brothers' adventures reads like a Forrest Gump of mismanaging US foreign policy. The brothers served as courtiers to US business interests through Sullivan and Cromwell and, in a choice that benefited those interests, made the paranoid decision to descend into the security dilemma spiral of the Cold War. They had no conception of "blowback" and because of that, their tale should be a blueprint for anyone trying to make sense of what status-quo news analysts and IR mandarins report on today.
The Brothers' Manichean view of the world would be hilarious if it was not so permanently damaging to American credibility. Their egregious conflicts of interest, mixing business with policy, was an unquestioned and inherited predilection that they got from their Grandpa, who helped overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy and from Wilson, the president who validated their instincts. These were men who sought monsters everywhere. Because of that, as Kinzer points out, they are profoundly American.
La Gloriosa Victoria
Interesting and enlightening book about two terrible and incompetent men with too much power to do harm around the world. Some things never change.
The brothers Dulles influenced American foreign policy, most often with disastrous results, over many decades. This detailed book provides lots of evidence of their philosophy, actions and influence.
